


Nightmares

by Purpleskiesofdragons



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Ending, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Darkfic, Future Fic, Nightmares, canon what’s that, or so it seems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:28:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23555326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purpleskiesofdragons/pseuds/Purpleskiesofdragons
Summary: He’s convinced that the burn isn’t real.On a night years after he destroyed Voldemort with his own curse, Harry Potter sits up in bed, holding his hand to his head as the familiar scorching pain of a receding nightmare and something else retreats.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”   
> -Albus Dumbledore, The Deathly Hallows

He’s convinced that the burn isn’t real. 

On a night  _ years _ after he destroyed Voldemort with his own curse ( _ rebounded, again, like the starless night when two flashes of green light skewed his destiny off its path and onto a danker, less-traveled one _ ), Harry Potter sits up in bed, holding his hand to his head as the familiar scorching pain of a receding nightmare and something else retreats. He hasn’t had a night like this in so many years that he’s convinced that he banged his head on the side table before bed, and it’s just the bruise acting up; he even gets up with a whispered apology to Ginny as he walks over to the bathroom sink to check for a wound.

All his hopes are dashed when he sees that there is no bruise, no reddened skin, just the  _ scar _ . It’s gotten thinner and paler over the years, until it’s just a light pink lightning bolt about the width of a spaghetti noodle. And it’s resting as innocently as ever on his forehead. Harry raises one hand, noticing with a detached surprise that it’s shaking, and touches it gently to the edges—

_ A flash of green. Laughing, high-pitched. A woman’s scream _ .

Harry stumbles against the counter, eyes squeezed shut against the memories that burn his eyelids. Voldemort is dead. He was reduced to a dead, shriveled husk by Harry and the ever-faithful Disarming spell, so why was his scar acting up again? 

He takes a deep breath, filling a paper cup with water and downing it quickly, then closes his eyes again. Maybe it’s just a headache, PTSD; it’ll go away when he wakes up at a proper time. It has to. Harry turns to go back to bed, but before he reaches the door, his vision blacks out again and one word is whispered sibilantly in his left ear, carrying a sickle-shaped smile and a horrible, horrible feeling that crawls like spiders down his back. 

_ Expelliarmus can only save you for so long, Harry Potter.  _

Harry gets another cup of water and goes to bed. That night, he dreams of a coiled snake, a bloodless snakelike face, and flashing green light. 

\---

“Your nightmares have started up again, haven’t they?” Ginny asks that morning at the breakfast table. They’re alone-- Albus is off with Scorpius, chasing magical creatures and new adventures in Romania, James is staying with a friend in South Wales, and Lily is finishing up her last year at Hogwarts. Harry doesn’t answer, but Ginny has since learned to read his silences. “That’s only happened—”

“After the Great Battle and Delphi,” Harry finishes wearily. “I know.” 

“Should I call the kids home?” Ginny suggests. “I know that James is training to be an Auror—“

“No,” Harry cuts across immediately. “Every time my scar hurts, it’s always been a sign that something big is coming. And we’re not losing a single kid.” He emphasizes these last words, and the look he gives Ginny is one that tells her what he can’t say aloud just yet:  _ I’m scared _ . 

“We’ll keep an eye out, then,” she amends, with a small nod and a meaningful look back. _ I understand. I’m here _ . “The entire Wizarding World knows us, and it’s not like we can’t scrounge up any protection.” Harry starts to protest, but she cuts him off with efficiency. “One of your best friends runs the Ministry, Harry, not to mention the three professors that fought Voldemort are still alive and kicking today. This is not like last time. This isn’t the Great Battle.” 

“He said something new,” Harry says quietly into his eggs. Ginny sombers. “‘ _ Expelliarmus can only save you for so long, Harry Potter _ .’” She sucks in a breath, and though she doesn’t say it, he knows that this predicament is suddenly a lot more dangerous. 

“A trained Legilimens?” she asks anyway, even though deep inside, they both know that’s not true. Harry shrugs helplessly, stabs at his breakfast (it’s sunny side up eggs, with the yolk sitting in a pleasantly round shape in the middle), and watches as runny yellow spills out. It’s a few shades lighter than what he remembers from a battle ages ago, when it was scarlet and sticky and spilling out onto age-old stones. 

Harry laughs to himself.

\---

It gets worse after that, but no one comes for his family. Ginny doesn’t fall to the floor in a tangle of red hair and dull eyes, and there is no high-pitched laugh. Harry still tosses and turns every night, as a voice whispers one phrase over and over.  _ Expelliarmus can’t save you forever, Harry Potter. _

He tears through the Ministry’s records, scours the newspapers, asks Ron and Hermione to look for any threats, and even pays a visit to Azkaban. Everyone reassures him that there’s no danger, no criminals, no whispers of any Death Eaters.  _ There haven’t been any for years _ , they say with sympathy in their eyes.  _ We’re safe _ . He’s not convinced, but thanks them with a tight smile and his retreating back as he searches, searches, searches. It’s not enough. 

“You’ll wear yourself out,” Ginny protests, tugging on his sleeve gently in an effort to get him to go to bed at a decent time. He ignores her and turns another page of a newspaper he found in the rubbish bin. It’s dated from two weeks ago and the headline tells him that the town is at least a hundred miles away from London, but anything will do. “Please, Harry. The whole Ministry is keeping an eye out.”

“They’re not enough,” he snaps at her. “They can’t see him. They don’t know what it  _ means _ .”

“But do you?” she returns quietly. 

Harry continues reading the paper, but only when he realizes that he’s been skimming over the same paragraph again and again, he begins to wonder what this all really  _ does _ mean. 

\--- 

The kids are worried about him.

Albus and Scorpius burst through the door one day in an explosion of loud voices and stories, carrying news about the dragons they got to watch hatch with Charlie Weasley, and the coven of vampires that had gone vegetarian. It doesn’t take long for them to find Harry in his study, head in his hands, Silencing charm cast around his desk, and buried in newspapers. They ask him what’s wrong, flitting and fretting and not leaving him alone, but a well-placed hex sends them out quickly. 

Harry locks the door after that, only coming out for meals. Lily and James had returned as well (no doubt Albus told them), but he can’t stand to look at them, to say their names. Their surnames are different, but their given names burn his tongue as the whispers and laughs and blackouts increase in volume and length. Ginny had even taken him to St. Mungo’s while he was out one time, and he isn’t ashamed to say that he hexed his way out of the hospital bed with record speed. 

Sleep is no better— in fact, Harry tries to avoid it as much as possible. That’s when he can’t wake up in time, when he sees  _ his _ face, hears his laugh, and the green light flashes over and over, Lily Potter’s scream following every time. And when it’s over, there’s just black, and the voice.  _ Expelliarmus can’t save you forever, Harry Potter _ . 

\---

One night, about two months after his scar first began to hurt ( _ it’s torturous now, until he can’t open his eyes without his head feeling like it’s been hit with the Cruciatus curse _ ), Harry stands at the bathroom counter again. He hasn’t shaved in weeks, so he has a rough beard now, and his hair is matted and falls into his eyes. He can hardly recognize himself, he realizes with a bitter laugh, but sleep evades him like opposite ends of a magnet; when the need for rest comes knocking, he doesn’t answer the door. 

Sleep deprivation also has a funny effect on the mind. The longer he stares at himself, the more he can see a different face; their hair is blond, longer, neater, and their eyes are wide and scared. It’s funny, he thinks with a glib kind of detachment, how he almost looks like Narcissa Malfoy. 

\---

There’s someone hovering over him. Her perfume is sweet, and her hair ( _ blond, longer, neater _ ) falls on either side of her face ( _ eyes wide and scared _ ) in a smooth cascade that hides both of their faces from view of the others surrounding them. An odd feeling rests in Harry’s chest, a bit like disappointment and a bit like terror, and there are wisps and snatches of memory that he can’t quite grasp. He walked into the Forbidden Forest to die, so why…?

Their hearts beat together in a frantic rhythm as she traces over his chest with gentle hands, searching for the telltale thump that they both know is there. Distantly, Harry wonders how he got here, but  _ where _ he came from is also uncertain. Was he even at a bathroom counter, or did he just sacrifice himself to end the Great Battle? It’s pointless, but he tries to grab onto those scraps of what could have been, what might have been, but they slip through his fingers. All that his hands catch is the memories he walked into the forest with. Just those, only those, only those… 

Harry waits like a lamb waiting for slaughter as Narcissa Malfoy stands. 

“He’s dead, my Lord.” 

And Hagrid unleashes an unrestrained howl of grief, Harry’s body is picked up with shaking hands, and time begins to unfold toward that one night years after the Great Battle, when Harry Potter sits up in bed. And his forehead hurts. 

**Author's Note:**

> Interpret this as you will; my intention was an alternate route where instead of Dumbledore having a nice ol’ chat with Harry, Harry sees a future where he goes mad. Leave a comment to tell me what you think :)


End file.
